The Guillotine

Roger looked out the darkened tower windows of the old lighthouse toward the rain-glazed weathered guillotine swaying in the wind. Along the jetty, waves slammed on all sides into the rocks. Inside, Roger examined the old lens and used the remaining drops of oil to light the dying lamp. This bodes well for any approaching ships later, Roger thought. He spat on the floor. Execution days were seldom fun. He climbed down the ladder of the tower and walked to the kitchen. He made himself an Old Fashioned with the remainder of the whiskey in the house and sat down with the docket. The roof creaked in duress, protesting the downpour. He stared at his reflection in the empty Jameson bottle. For a moment, the Jameson stared back. He squirmed in his chair as his eyes finally settled on the page. Most of it was empty, just dates with nothing underneath. He found July 7, and beneath that, a name— Browen, Emily. His heart sank. He knew not why he hadn’t paid any attention to the names on the sheet before; if he had, perhaps he could have sent a letter requesting a prisoner be transferred to a different executioner.

He rose from his chair, his wrinkled hands shaking as he pushed it in. He took his drink in one hand and shuffled over to the sink and vomited, tossing the whisky down the drain. Leaving the glass on the counter, he withdrew to his quarters. The hallway was adored with lamps on equidistant tables, some on, some out, bathing the oak wood in a dim shadowed light. There were no windows in this part of the house, if you could call it that. A crystal chandelier hung in the center with candle-holders, but they had not been replaced in some time. The wax had collected at their bases and all that remained hanging over the sides were stalactites of former candles. Along the wall, portraits of the previous keepers for the past hundred years glanced at Roger, from 1750’s faded Perseus Nicholas Altrigham III to the recent daguerreotype of Roger himself, frozen in smile, his weathered and wrinkled skin the color of boiled leather from his days as a farmhand reflected little in this image. Roger didn’t see it, but the picture was scowling at him

At last he entered his room and swung open the door. The room was simple, with a small made bed in the center against the wall when one came in, and a small chest at the foot of it. Against the left-hand wall, a small dresser sat as well as a bookshelf, and in the right-hand corner was an unoccupied rocking-chair bathed in dust motes from the sunbeams that managed to eke through the drawn drapes. Along the bookshelf were some works by Shakespeare, including King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Moby-Dick, Paradise Lost, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Hanging on the wall facing the bed was a facsimile of the Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints, by Torelli, and beneath it, a desk where sat a quill, some papers, reports, records, and multiple drawers on each side. He walked over to the dresser and from one of the middle drawers drew a rosary. Shutting the drawer, he walked to the foot of the bed and sat at the trunk. He held the rosary in the proper fashion, pressed the cross on his necklace to his lips, and looked up at the Madonna. The virgin looked back at him. For a moment she seemed bemused, then understanding, and then she resumed her normal painted expression. The child Christ was less able to hide his disappointment, but eventually managed. Roger looked down at his feet, murmuring. The cracked dried mud caking his boots gave no answer. At last he spoke.

“Forgive me, for I must sin. I am today bade to execute a sentence which to me seems ghastly, but the magistrate being appointed by the King, and the King deriving rule from the Divine, I must be in error, and the way of things just. Still, I seek a pardon for this soon-to-happen murder for without this my conscious may not be clear. The manner in which Emily Browen was convicted was, at best, specious, and, at worst, casuistic. Cursed I must be for some previous sin to have not seen her name on my calendar, and greater plague too that I should attest to the fidelity of her character before a deaf jury. My heart and soul be pure, and ready to receive thy judgment, Lord, but I understand not the way of things or why this must be so. I comprehend her as a woman of probity and disposition pious. Does she not love her Maker and praise Him for all things? Is she not the resemblance of Mary, having never divorced and honoring her bed? Does she not tithe? My parents having departed me 44 years ago in my thirteenth year left me alone with her, and, though both being stricken with grief we sought comfort in each other, but we knew each other not. Vicious rumor spread due to our closeness resulting from our mutual affliction. She was and is 19 years my senior. She was no female pederast. That must not be the sin. Why must I be the one who ends her life? What have I done to warrant such punishment? Oh, Lord of Heaven, if it pleases thee, show me my wrong!”

A gust of wind blew the windows open, slamming them against the walls with a loud bang, rattling the hinges and sending a King James Bible from the bookshelf scattering to the floor. His prayers had been fortuitously answered, for the book was conspicuously open to Exodus 23. Roger scanned the first three lines. “Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment. Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause”. He stopped reading. He had not done evil by defending Emily. Emily did not murder the pauper, nor did she steal from him. His eyes skipped a few lines and settled on, “Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked. And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.” At last he understood. God’s judgment was righteous. It was not his position to tear from the spouse of the poor man his little possessions. God would not condemn an innocent to death. She must have been guilty. She must. He rose from the trunk and put the rosary away. The window was closed, and Jesus and Mary glowed.

As he went outside to raise the blade of the guillotine and tie it to the post nearby so it could be dropped immediately and without much fuss, a schooner cut across the wine-dark sea. The clouds were darker now and the rain was harder. A thunderclap echoed across the waves. Through the fog, he could see a few figures moving about the deck as the ship approached the shore with great speed. The boat landed at the docks and trudging up the rocky hill, guided by a tall pale man with a plain face and ill-composed form, clad in the uniform of the King’s Guard, was the gaunt figure of Emily Browen, hands and feet manacled with a chain up the middle tying the two shackles together.

Emily Browen wore a thin pale blue shroud that did little to hide her figure underneath, though there was not much to speak of. Her breasts were shriveled and flat. Her ribs showed through the skin so much one had to double-check to make sure they were not on the exterior of her body. Her fingers were thin and wrinkled from her 67 years and her nails were sharp and untrimmed. Her face was slack, sunken, and the skin stretched sharply over her cheekbones. Her lips were chapped, and her grey hair was but a handful of strangled streaks, coarse and falling out in tufts. Of course, there was a time when she was quite attractive, even in her dotage before her crime she was thought to be rather pleasant to the eyes. But murderesses are seldom treated with dignity after conviction.

At the top of the hill Emily’s glossy brown eyes, glazed over and crusted with yellow muck underneath the eyelids, caught Roger’s and she shot him a pleading glance. Roger sneered at her. The King’s Guard approached Roger and handed him the execution orders. Roger signed them and turned to Emily.

“Roger, please,” Emily begged.

“Silence, you killer!” he snapped.

“I thought you believed me,” Emily’s eyes began to tear up.

“I know better now,” Roger said coolly.

“What on earth do you mean?” she choked, tears welling up.

Rogers eyes narrowed. His face straightened. He leaned down and stared into Emily’s eyes, scowling, and whispered, flat and stern, “God has shown me the Truth. You tricked me in to testifying on your behalf. You made me a liar and a sinner before Christ—”

“I did no such thing, Roger!” Emily cried, straining against the heavy chains, “Please, please,” her face was hot and flush, spilling tears from her eyes like a deck of cards cascading down in a shuffle, “Let me go. Let me go! You know I didn’t do this. We lived together for ages. You visited me for ages,” she was panting now, “How can you do this? Why do you not defend me? I loved you as a son! Please! I’m begging you, please!”

“Vile temptress Eve, ear of the serpent Lucifer, you shall not succeed in swaying my heart!” he shrieked. His face was skull-white, and his dark eyes had blackened. He gave a nod of approval to the King’s Guard, and the King’s Guard smacked her across the face.

Emily looked down at the ground. She was unshackled and forced into the stocks. She began to pray. Somewhere in the middle of her chanting she demanded a stay of execution and a rabbi brought to perform her last rites, stating that she had recently converted. The King’s Guard told her that such a foolish ploy would not work, and that her last rites performed for a Catholic at the jail would have to suffice. Emboldened by this slight, she prayed harder and with as much fervor as she could muster. The King’s Guard asked how Roger knew of Emily. Roger responded that at a time she was his godparent.

The King’s Guard chortled. Emily was now scarlet with rage. There was a sound of thunder and a bright flash. The rain was hammering against the guillotine like the hail that struck Egypt. It creaked as it swayed in the hard wind. Roger informed her that her prayers were done.

“Miss Emily Browen, today, the seventh of July in the year of our Lord the eighteen-fifty-second, you have at this time,” he checked his pocket watch, “eighteen-hundred hours and thirty-six minutes, been condemned to die by the guillotine. Your last rites having been read, and the execution orders having been signed by the magistrate, and me, the executioner with the representative for the King as witness, we offer you these last seconds for you to make your final statement before your sentence is carried out. Have you anything?”

Emily looked up to meet Roger’s eyes as best she could, “Hashem yikkom ha’dam sheli,” she murmured. God shall avenge my blood. She spat in his face. Roger recoiled, wiped the spit from his rain-soaked glasses and sneered, “May god have mercy on your soul”.

He walked to the post where the rope that held the blade was tied. There was a loud bang! and a flash. Lighting had struck the guillotine, setting it ablaze. Roger toppled backward. The stocks collapsed. The King’s Guard charged at Emily as she scrambled away. The blade sliced through the air and came down on his neck. The blood burped, spurting forward with each rapid pulse, jolting rhythmically, pouring over his neck and soaking the ground as if watering plants in a garden for the undead. Initially the blood was thick, sticky, and viscous, but as the rain continued down the blood thinned. The pulse was stagnant now, barely moving. The neck twitched every few seconds. The King’s Guard’s hands curled, tearing at the grass as the blood ran colder and colder until he could no longer feel it. He saw the pallor in his hands. Then, he saw nothing.

Roger was paralyzed. He looked toward the guillotine, smashed to ruins, still inexplicably on fire. It was only then that he noticed that Emily had made it to the schooner and was struggling with throwing the hawser into the sea. Roger stumbled after her and met her on the docks. There was another thunderclap followed by a blinding flash. Roger and Emily flew backward. When they got to their feet, they noticed the middle of the dock had been shattered. Pieces of smoldering wood scattered what remained of the dock. Seven feet separated the two. The rain was dying down. Emily snatched up a piece of wood and brandished it.

“Don’t make me do this, Roger!” her hands were trembling, “The King’s Guard is dead, you don’t have to play pretend any longer. That’s what it was, right? You couldn’t say your true intentions while he was there. We can leave.”

“I would have hoped,” said Roger, clearing his throat, “that a woman as advanced in age as you would not be so naïve”

“So, you feel nothing? No remorse? No love for the woman who took you in, clothed you, educated you, ensured you had a life? All that is meaningless?

Roger walked back to the front end of the dock. He turned and charged, leaping through the air. Thwack! Roger fell beneath the sea. A few moments later, arms shot up from the water and latched on to the dock. He pulled himself up and spat. Bleeding and delirious, he swiped at Emily. She swung wildly, cutting through the air, advancing. He darted forward, snatching the plank and tossing it to the side. The two stared at each other. Each one waiting for the other to make a move. The seconds ticked by. Roger darted forward. Adrenaline pumping, Emily managed to lift up the mooring and threw the loop around Roger’s neck. Roger struggled against the weight of the rope, feet scraping against the side of the dock. Emily kicked him backward, throwing Roger against side of the ship. His face grew scarlet, sputtering for a few moments. Then, his body was limp.

Emily made her way on to the ship and took it out. The clouds had parted, and the sun shone brightly. As the ship cut across the sea, she threw her face toward the blue sky and asked herself aloud how her former godson had turned on her and what god had come to her aid. No answer came to her. Whatever force had protected her earlier had left and gone elsewhere. Somewhere along the journey, Roger’s body fell and disappeared beneath the waves.